In general, vehicles include an engine room in a front part of a vehicle body, and a power engine is installed in the engine room. In addition, the left and right side surfaces of this engine room are each covered by a fender panel, and the top opening of the engine room is covered by an openable hood.
The cowl portion is placed between the rear end portion of the hood and the front end portion of the windshield of the vehicle so as to serve as a partition between the engine room and vehicle interior. The cowl top cover is attached so as to cover this cowl portion to improve the external appearance of the vehicle. In addition, the cowl top cover is usually provided with an intake vent (air inlet) for introducing outside air into the vehicle body.
A conventional cowl top cover is supported by a vehicle body panel by fixing a panel fixing portion placed at a front-side lower portion of the cowl top cover to the vehicle body panel. In addition, an elastically deformable sealing member is fixed to a front-side upper portion of the cowl top cover. This sealing member is closely attached to the bottom surface of a rear end portion of the hood in a closed state, thereby, sealing the gap between the cowl top cover and the hood via the sealing member, and preventing leakage of the heat or smell of the power engine from the engine room.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2011-51450 (hereinafter, referred to as “PTL 1”), for example, discloses an example of such a cowl top cover placed between the rear end portion of the hood and the front end portion of the windshield.
The cowl top cover disclosed in PTL 1 includes: a sealing member placing portion that supports the rear end portion of the hood via the sealing member; a vertical wall portion formed, extending downward from a rear end portion of the sealing member placing portion as a starting point; and a panel-placing portion supported by an upper end portion of a dash panel. In addition, the vertical wall portion of the cowl top cover includes: a first inclined portion formed so as to be inclined backward at a predetermined angle based on a perpendicular line extending from the rear end portion of the sealing member placing portion as a starting point; and a second inclined portion formed by bending the first inclined portion forward of the first inclined portion.
In the cowl top cover of PTL 1, when an impact load is applied to the top surface of the hood from above, for example, because of a collision of an object (e.g., pedestrian) with the hood and the rear end portion of the hood deforms and moves downward, the bent portion between the first and the second inclined portions deforms due to the impact load applied downward from above, thus allowing the sealing member placing portion to move downward while preventing the cowl top cover (specifically, the vertical wall portion) from being stiff against the downward movement. Thus, it is made possible to efficiently absorb the impact load, thereby enabling a reduction of the impact on the object in collision with the hood.
Incidentally, the rear end portion of the cowl top cover of PTL 1 is placed and fixed onto the glass surface (outer surface) of the front end portion of the windshield. In addition, PTL 1 includes an illustration indicating that the rear end portion of the cowl top cover is movable relative to the windshield, for example, when the cowl top cover deforms due to an impact load applied to the top surface side of the hood as described above.
Note that, in the cowl top cover of PTL 1, placing the rear end portion of the cowl top cover on top of the outer surface of the front end portion of the windshield, as described above, joins (engages) the cowl top cover and the windshield together. Moreover, some conventional cowl top covers employ, as the structure to join the cowl top cover and the front end portion of the windshield together, a structure in which the rear end portion of the cowl top cover includes a glass engaging portion having a bifurcated shape like a clip and thereby holds and supports the front end portion of the windshield.
In the engaging structure of this kind, however, the cowl top cover and windshield are joined together while the rear end portion of the cowl top cover protrudes from the outer surface of the windshield. The protrusion of the rear end portion of the cowl top cover from the windshield makes a poor appearance, thus causing degradation in the appearance quality of the vehicle.
In addition, the protrusion of the rear end portion of the cowl top cover from the windshield causes a problem in that foreign objects such as dust are easily accumulated in a boundary portion between the cowl top cover and windshield, and the task to remove the accumulated foreign objects becomes complicated and cumbersome.
To address these problems, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication (Translation of PCT Application) No. 2003-532574 (hereinafter, referred to as “PTL 2”) proposes an engaging structure that enables an arrangement in which the protrusion of the rear end portion of the cowl top cover from the glass surface of the windshield is eliminated, and the glass surface of the windshield and the outer surface of the rear end portion of the cowl top cover are placed flush with each other.
In the engaging structure disclosed in PTL 2, the rear end portion of the cowl top cover includes a locking hook portion, and a fitting member to which the locking hook portion of the cowl top cover can be fittingly attached is bonded to the bottom surface of the front end portion of the windshield.
Employing the engaging structure (fitting structure) using the fitting member as disclosed in PTL 2 enables the arrangement in which the glass surface of the windshield and the outer surface of the rear end portion of the cowl top cover are flush with each other. Thus, it is made possible to make the boundary portion between the windshield and the cowl top cover look better and also to prevent the accumulation of foreign objects such as dust in the boundary portion.